Introduction

The graphic above describes the test scenario creation process which is as follows:

Plan / Design

We recommend that before even opening the tool that each scenario that is to be used as part of the test is planned and designed. In a structured SDLC (software development life-cycle) this information would be filtered down from a high level load test plan.

This phase is the basis for a well-planned test, in its simplest form this will consider the scenarios you want to have in your test which may be like: ‘create account’, ‘search products’, ‘buy product’ and so on.

Furthermore there will be a weight applied to each of these scenarios (usually a percentage) relating to how many users should be executing each scenario in the test.

Finally you should establish the projected transaction rate that you expect from each scenario, e.g. how many products will the site sell in an hour, or how many searches will the site process per hour - transactions per hour rates for each type of scenario.

The control of the transaction rate is done by controlling the speed of the script which can be done by altering the user ‘SLEEP’ time weither in the script or in AgileLoad Test Center. Other considerations could include the data that may be needed for the test (email addresses, unique records etc.) and any scripts that you may need to create to automatically generate data.

Capture

Capture is covered in detail here and in more detail in the advanced sections.

Edit

Script Editing can be done using script editor. Script editing is covered in the advanced sections.

Replay & Compare

The replay and compare phase is vital to ensure that you have a working script that reflects a scenario correctly, for example if the scenario is to create an account on a web site then the script should successfully create an account on that web site when it is replayed. By comparing the output of a script replay between that and the original output of the browser will quickly identify any important differences that would need to be addressed weither by recapture or by editing the script.